


Like Beethoven’s Greatest Symphonies

by chxrryrose



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, hope and josie are kind of OOC, hope has anxiety, idk what this is, i’m only doing this for hosie hogwarts hoes, josie is kinda childish and whimsical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:36:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chxrryrose/pseuds/chxrryrose
Summary: At least she has Josie, and it is simply everything to watch as she climbs out of the taxi and looks upon their new, old little shack.Within those brown eyes she glances a thousand different lifetimes and she knows, this is their beginning.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman
Comments: 9
Kudos: 57





	Like Beethoven’s Greatest Symphonies

Stepping out of the taxi is like waking from a dream. Gone was the security of having a home to leave and to return to every day after work, gone was the cozy old nook across from the attic that Hope would always nestle into with her paint and easel, gone was the scent of home that she was sure lingered on everyone's clothes and hair, a smell she no longer had.

At least she has Josie, and it is simply everything to watch as she climbs out of the taxi and looks upon their new, old little shack. Within those brown eyes she glances a thousand different lifetimes and she knows, this is their beginning. 

Their little, dilapidated shack distresses Hope at first, there is so much to do and she's not sure they can do it, but Josie reminds her that they have all the time in the world, that they'll probably still be renovating the place when they're wrinkled and grey. 

If it was anyone else attempting to brush off her worries as if they weren't an utterly paralyzing aspect of who she was, she would have smacked them over the head. But everything Josie says is with a soft tone of conviction, a gentle lilt like a wave in a maelstrom of meaning. Every word she says is with intention, as though using a word without a proper reason to is cruel to the word itself.

She guides Hope, gently, to the first steps of their veranda and wordlessly decides they will start renovating there. As they are removing rotted, wooden planks and hammering in new ones, Josie promises that they'll eat their breakfast out there every morning. Listening and watching the wind playfully scrap with the grass in their own, coordinated dance. 

"Peaches and devilled eggs." The whole idea is so random and whimsical that Hope can't imagine anything else coming out of Josie’s mouth. She also doesn't have the heart to tell the brunette she's allergic to peaches because when Josie smiles, her one, happy dimple reveals itself and suddenly, the idea of an allergic reaction while two figures watch grass and wind play isn't all that unappealing. 

"Peaches and devilled eggs," Hope mumbles her assent.

Once all the planks have been replaced and sealed, Hope spends the rest of the day in their bedroom. Despite Josie’s calming presence, Hope’s nerves won’t allow her to breathe. 

She arranges and then rearranges their furniture three times until she is pleased with the result. 

Josie is halfway through the song before Hope realises she is playing Claude Debussy's Clair de lune on their treasured piano the next room over. 

Hope sits and listens to her lover playing music that sounds the way she thinks, for what feels like hours. Eventually, Hope paints robins egg blue in the shape of stars on their ivory ceiling. 

Because what other colour does one paint stars on an already white sky? 

She chuckles to herself and thinks her mind is slowly becoming like Beethoven's greatest compositions. Beautiful.

That night as the pair lay to rest, Hope stares at the ceiling, complaining that she can't see her stars. She laments that they should've got those glow in the dark stick-on stars she saw at an Ease-E-Mart. 

Josie chides her and says her stars are much better. 

Half the time Hope can't comprehend the way Josie thinks; she sees things and notices things that no one else does. She finds beauty in everything, she even finds beauty in Hope, though the redhead can't possibly understand why. 

Hope thinks Josie’s the prettiest thing she has ever glanced upon, with her depthless, outer-space eyes, her graceful countenance, and the gentle way she sways like a guileless reed in the wind. 

Hope has tried, many times, to look upon herself and find what Josie sees in her, the redhead supposes that it's exactly what she sees in Josie.

Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when the night-terrors refuse to let her sleep, Josie will lead her to the next room (which Hope has officially deemed as Josie’s Music Room) and while she plays sorrowful sonnets about love lost and great tragedy, Hope dances. She dances for herself and Josie. She doesn't care if she looks downright unhinged, when she glides and frolics and twirls, for one, simple moment, everything is as it should be. 

For one moment they have not left their lives and everything else behind them on the promise of something better, for one moment she feels as beautiful as Josie sees her, for one moment the crushing weight of utter dismay, does not harrow her as heavily.

Josie never makes her talk about it. Hope knows it's not out of lack of care, Josie cares for her deeply, but it’s more out of respect for herself. 

Ever since she was a child, Hope has always been a guarded, private person, few were allowed into her bubble of existence, including Josie. That never discouraged the brunette though, she blustered into her life and her heart with all the ferocity of a mouse.

Josie’s clever and ever-careful words constantly intrigued Hope, until the very moment when her invasion on the unclaimed territory of Hope’s heart became not-so unwelcome. 

Josie mattered to her so much because she was there for her in ways no one else was. 

Losing her father was not a surprise. His health slowly but surely depleted as the years went on, until he eventually passed in the wee hours of a frosty, winter morning. It disturbed and disgusted Hope to her core when she failed to experience the feeling of shock one often feels after losing a loved one. 

She would spend hours by his grave, doing and thinking nothing in particular. She vividly remembers the gradual feeling of her body turning to lead, her numbness dragging her deeper and deeper into the puddles of despair created by her tears.

Josie, with her unfailing willingness to be the Josie to her Hope, healed her in ways Hope still does not understand. How could someone help by simply being there? It amazed the redhead how someone so unsullied and wonderful wanted to be in her life. 

Josie was her light; and she would not trade her care and the way she made her feel, for anything in this world.

The morning feels trivial for Hope as she sweeps the back deck of the shack. The sky does not seem to know what to do with itself, one moment sombre clouds of great depression roil amid the cornflower blue, and the next, the sun's repelling brilliance swims among the heavenly depths.

Hope draws her gaze away from the indecisive heavens and instead watches Josie climb the apple tree that teeters on the edge of the hill the shack rests on. 

Hope can't contain the laughter that bubbles up deep from her belly upon catching the expression of intense concentration on Josie’s face as she scours the tree for her perfect apple. 

This isn't the first time Hope’s caught the brunette searching. She always says she must find the perfect apple. But Josie never chooses the biggest or the brightest apple, she chooses the special one. The one that's just a little bit different than all the others, the one, that upon first glance looks completely regular, but is actually the most unique of all. 

She finds her perfectly imperfect apple at last. It's smaller than the rest and looks a bit squashed, but when she picks it from the tree there's that discernable triumphant snap that sends shivers down Josie’s spine. She stands from her perching position in the tree and holds the apple above her head, about to yell out her victory to Hope when suddenly she’s tumbling down. 

Josie is unused to the sensation that is falling. The world's only supposed to be topsy-turvy when she’s bored and hangs her head over the side of the bed. But there’s no bed here, and Josie is falling out of the tree and down the hill. She has barely caught her breath by the time she is rolling to a stop at it's grassy base. 

During all the kerfuffle, Hope had stood prone, watching with a bemused expression as Josie fell out of the apple tree and rolled down the hill. 

Shaking her mind free, Hope drops the broom in concern and runs to aid her lover, but she stops in her tracks as Josie’s figure comes into her periphery. 

She’s scratching the back of her head, eyes sparkling and a lop-sided grin is plastered on her face; with her other hand she holds out the apple in front of her. An invitation. 

Grumbling incoherently at Josie’s foolishness, Hope can't help but notice the "aw shucks" expression on the brunette’s face as Hope shakes her head and lectures her about safety while she treks back up to her.

The next morning Josie states they need a break from all the renovating, so she plans an adventure. The farthest Hope’s wandered outside is to the base of the hill, but it’s no surprise that Josie already knows every inch of the land surrounding their place. 

She leads them far from the shack, and through the valley that rests at the bottom of the hill. They stroll for what feels like hours, the hill and shack slowly descending into a pinprick on the periphery of Hope’s vision. If it wasn’t for the fact that she knows Josie never gets lost, she is sure they would never find their way home. 

Home. She called the shack her home for the first time. She ponders on that to keep her mind distracted from the worry. 

Eventually, verdant grass and tickling wildflowers converge into the unmistakable buzz of bees. It takes Hope a moment to realise they’re currently residing in a sunflower field. But Josie doesn’t wait for her to say anything as she leads her through the flowery thicket. 

Sunflower leaves brush against both of their thighs and Hope can feel the hairs on the back of her neck spike as lonesome birds of prey daringly swoop from the skies above. The sting her ears expect to feel from their sharp wails is softened by Josie’s bright smile and hurried feet.

The sunflowers themselves are so tall, Hope can barely peek over them to follow Josie’s frenzied path. For a moment, when the light scuffs of Josie’s feet grow distant and eventually subside, Hope allows panic to set in. 

She doesn’t know why she greets it so readily, she supposes it’s hopeless to fight the big ugly monster inside her. Anxiety is never paired with common sense. 

Even though she knows Josie is here, somewhere, all around her, she can’t shake the feeling that she’ll never escape this field, that she’ll never find her brunette. What she always fails to remember, however, is that whenever Hope is lost, Josie always finds her. 

It is with terrifyingly good timing (timing that only she ever seems to possess), that Josie pokes her head through the small cocoon of flowers that Hope had somehow ensconced herself within during her panic. Her stomach ceases to roil, but she can’t help the wave of emotions that instantly flood her at the sight of Josie. Relief. Security. Familiarity. Shame. She is so overcome that the first thing she even thinks to do is chastise her. so she does. Then she kisses her, desperately.

There are not many things she hopes for in this world, she has been bent and broken, misshapen and mishandled, with little love left to give. But what she had left, Josie found. She cultivated it, grew it, and in doing so she sprinkled other things into Hope’s heart. Happiness, dreams, ambition, peace of mind, quiet. One thing she does hope for, is that everyone finds the Josie to their Hope, and that they will spend the rest of their eternity fixing and healing every neglected crevice of their old shack. 

Yes, Hope thinks, she could spend eternity dancing to Beethoven and eating peaches and tumbling out of apple trees and wandering through sunflower fields. As long as it’s with Josie.


End file.
